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Show HILL TOP TIMES Friday, Moy 17. 1985 Ceiremoimy peons iroew The ribbon cutting: for a Dlastic bead blastinsr fa cihty here May 10 marked a major milestone for the Air Force in paint stripping technology and represented another Utah success story. The process for removing old paint from aircraft and ground support equipment was developed by long-tim- e base employee, Robert A. Roberts, Directorate of Maintenance. The new facility is the first of its kind in the Air Force. The technique involves spraying the soft plastic material, which has sharp angular surface characteristics with excellent cutting qualities, against the painted surface of the aircraft and ground support equipment to remove the old paint. beid Iblostf caeiliiffy Utah Congressman Jim Hansen DarticiDated in the ceremony by holding the ribbon and testing the new procedure, blasting some paint off an F-- 4 aircraft wing-fol"With this concept, Hill has made a tremendous step forward in reducing the cost of paint stripping and eliminating the use of chemical stripping solutions," the congressman said. "This concept is fantastic and you all deserve a big well done." Mr. Roberts' idea for using the plastic beads, which resemble grains of white sand, offers a number of advantages. One primary advantage is elimd. . ination of the approximately 20,400 gallons of liquid chemicals and water required under the old method tor an average paint stripping job on a fighter air-- craft. This, in turn, dramatically reduces the ex posure of workers to toxic chemicals and eliminates the problem of disposing of the resulting hazardous liquid wastes. Bead blasting requires approximately h the time of the former process and represents a considerable monetary savings. Approximate annual material costs are $24,000 for the beads, compared one-tent- to $585,000 for chemicals. Mr. Roberts, who is a lead engineering technician in the Aircraft Division, began researching possi- ble alternatives to chemical stripping in 1979. He tried several approaches before hitting on the current process. As word of plastic bead blasting spread, Army, Navy and private industries sent representatives to Hill AFB to study the technique. Many are now working on adapting the idea to their own work situations. Bead blasting uses about one-hathe amount of energy, eliminates pollution and sewage contaminants, increases production capability by 100 percent on F-- 4 Phantom paint stripping, saves an average of 20,000 gallons of water per aircraft during stripping, and can be used to strip most surfaces without damage to substrates. lf " I N (U.S. Air fnrcti Phntn hw Rnir.P Mr.C.nrmarU Cutting the ribbon opening the new bead blast paint stripping facility here are r) Maj. Gen. Charles McCausland, commander, Ogden Air Logistics Center; Robert Roberts and Utah Congressman James (l-- Hansen. Space-availab- le Depeondeimll's irecenve r u ft Dime demi'S! The lack of dental care benefits for military families has been a long-terconcern of military members and dental professionals alike. This is all going to change July 1 when dependents m receive space-availabl- dental e privileges as approved in the fiscal 1985 Defense Authorization Act. "For years, medical care for family members excluded routine dental care. That will not be the case anymore. Now we can begin to treat the whole person," stated Col. (Dr.) William M. Morlang, command dental surgeon for Air Force Logistics Command. Beginning in July, family members will be able to make appointments for basis. routine care on a Initial entry to the program must be accomplished during the sponsor's birth month, except at Robins AFB, Ga., where the existing program will continue. For medical purposes, space-availab- le Robins AFB is considered a remote area and a dependent dental care program is already in place. " We are excited about being able to provide some treatment to the whole family. In the past, we could provide family members only with emergency dental care, and children with preventive dentistry," the doctor said. "For example, if we had an emergency patient in pain who needed a filling, all we could do was put in a temporary filling and suggest they see a civilian dentist. Now, hopefully, we can put in a permanent filling and take care of the problem." "This has been very frustrating for us," he continued. "We have a very dedicated group of 73 dental officers ' in AFLC; they want to do all they can to help the patient." treatWhile some ment for family members will normalspace-availabl- III II -- "V I .. FAMILY DENTAL CARE v . . k 7 e ly be available, the number of appointments will not be as plentiful as desired. Dependent dental care will probably be limited to an increase of only five to 10 percent. "As always, our active force is going to come first. Whatever space can then be made available will go to dependents of active duty, retired members and their dependents, in that order," Dr. Morlang stated. The main problem with adding family members to the system is that, ac- siire cording to law, no new facilities or staff can be added to pick up this extra workload. According to Dr. Morlang, the command dental clinics are exceptionally busy now with 1,259,595 patients treated last year. "By being more efficient in providing care to active force support personnel, I think we can accommodate more family members without compromising readiness or quality," the doctor . said. The dental surgeon at each base will be the local manager for dependent dental care and will release a specific number of appointments for family members on a monthly basis. This will be accomplished after a review of the oral health needs of the active force. A percentage of these will be available to retirees. Care should hopefully include an examination, cleaning and filling appointment. The amount and type of dependent dental care will vary from base to base depending on the needs of the active force, availability of professional staff and waiting time for active force appointments. The preventive dentistry, dental emergency and dental radiology grams for dependents will basically be unchanged. Standby care, where one fills in for broken appointments, will always be available in command dental chnics during normal duty hours. (LOGNEWS) New personal account ability program launched In a significant expansion of his al- ready existing "back to basics" program, Gen. Earl T. O'Loughlin this week launched a personal program for Force Logistics accountability in Air ; N Command. The AFLC commander, emphasizing that "my watchword is accounta- bility,", said military and civilian members of the command alike mus, t shoulder their responsibilities and be held personally accountable for their 'actions or inaction. Writing to AFLC's field commanders and the headquarters staff, the general said one of the goals of this initiative is to ensure that every person in the command knows what his or her responsibilities are, accepts those responsibilities, and knows they are accountable for meeting the standards. : "It's part of being a professional-knowi- ng our jobs and expecting to be rewarded according to performance," the commander pointed out. "As leaders," he told senior and mid-levmanagers, "we have a special duty to set goals, determine priorities, establish standards, reward success and initiative, and administer; , el discipline. While AFLC's posture and mission performance are now among the best ever, I'm looking to do better.". General O'Loughlin noted that he has been impressed with the hard work and "noteworthy accomplish- ments" of AFXC people. i, "We are on the right track in terms of our goals and we appear to have a solid foundation under our major pro- grams," he said. "I am convinced that we have all the elements of success our job is to put them together and exert the necessary leadership." The push for accountability was also the theme of a speech which General O'Loughlin delivered at Kelly AFB, Texas, recently and it will be formalized in a forthcoming addition to AFLC's regulations. Other facets of General O'Lough-lin'- s "back to basics" theme include: increased support to Air Force weapon systems; upgrading of the command's data processing equipment; improved financial manage500-seri- es ment; improvement of AFLC's professional image; and upgrading the command workforce's quality of life. ,,,v,KlQews) |